From the monthly archives:

September 2009

Chase sucks! Homeowners use social media to fight back

by Moe Bedard

Banks just do not get it. They may sit on all the big corporate media boards and fill political coffers in turn to pull the strings of our Senators, but they cannot control social media sites.
Their failure to do what is right is being exposed daily by homeowners and banking clients like the one below. [...]

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Are you being abused by Chase? Here is how you get help!

by Moe Bedard

Are you being screwed by Chase? Are you being used and abused during the loan modification or short sale process and want to know your rights?
Welcome to the club of unhappy homeowners, abused Chase clients and never ending stories of lies, lies and more lies. Heck, don’t take my word for it, there are over [...]

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Foreclosure law aims to help Oregon homeowners

by Moe Bedard

Senate Bill 628 requires lenders to make a good faith effort to meet in person or on the phone with homeowners having problems making the month mortgage payment.
“What I hope will happen is there will be increased communication between the borrower, and the home owners who are facing foreclosure and their lenders” said Oregon Senator [...]

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Nevada enacts law to stop loan modification scams

by Moe Bedard

The State of Nevada has ruled that every single loan modification consultant in Nevada will have to stop operations on Thursday if they don’t meet new requirements.
This stems from a law passed in May, which created new regulations for loan modifiers. Before that, anyone could call himself or herself a modifier. That led to a [...]

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Knock, knock. Who’s there? Freddie….

by Moe Bedard

It’s not quite “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” 
But it’s along those lines. 
Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage giant, plans to send people out to knock on the doors of borrowers who might qualify for a loan modification under President Obama’s Making Home Affordable program but haven’t completed the paperwork. 
The plan, which [...]

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Foreclosure Strippers: Screwed homeowners decide to get even

by Moe Bedard
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Banks hold record delinquent mortgages

by Moe Bedard

The ratio of first mortgages 90-days late in Orange County rose for the seventh straight month in July, hitting 6.7% of all loans outstanding. That’s the highest percentage since at least January 2007, when it was a mere 0.7%, and is up slightly from 6.6% in June, reports First American CoreLogic.
The percentage of mortgages here [...]

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FORECLOSURE MEDIATION PROGRAMS’ POTENTIAL TO HELP HOMEOWNERS NOW IN JEOPARDY DUE TO LACK OF INDUSTRY ACCOUNTABILITY

by Moe Bedard

NCLC Looks at 25 Programs in 14 States: CA, CT, FL, IN, KY, ME, MI, NV, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR and PA; Mediation Programs Seen as Faltering For Same Reasons as Struggling Federal Voluntary Foreclosure Modification Efforts.
WASHINGTON, D.C.///September 23, 2009///A spate of new state and local programs that have emerged over the last year [...]

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Ohio AG Cordray Complaint Filed in Shareholder Lawsuit Against Bank of America

by Moe Bedard

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced today that the Lead Plaintiff group in a securities class action lawsuit against Bank of America has filed a consolidated amended complaint.  The complaint alleges that statements made in 2008 by Defendants regarding the Bank of America merger with Merrill Lynch failed to disclose billions of [...]

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Apartment renters become victim of predatory landlord

by Moe Bedard

HEMET, Calif. (KABC) — A Hemet neighborhood with a history of financial woes was in even more trouble Monday night. Almost every apartment unit on the 500 block of Mobley Lane has gone into foreclosure. And residents say they’re being told to leave, even if they’ve paid their rent.

Read more from ABC

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Anger at bank overdraft fees gets hotter, bigger and louder

by Moe Bedard

At first glance, banks’ practices seem reasonable enough: Overdraw your account, and the bank will cover the transaction — for a fee. The problem is, most banks don’t ask consumers if they want their transactions automatically paid. In recent years, as banks realized how lucrative these fees can be, they’ve made it easier for consumers [...]

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Foreclosure chicanery not a funny lawyer joke

by Moe Bedard

But filing fake documents to establish the right to take possession of someone’s home? That’s not something a lawyer should do.
So what if that were suddenly happening in cases all over the nation? What if some law firms that specialize in bulk handling of mortgage foreclosures for the lending industry were having so much trouble [...]

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Shadow Market Part IV: Trying to Get a Loan Modification in Phoenix

by Moe Bedard

Too far underwater to refinance her loan, Ms. Parry says she began seeking a loan modification from Citigroup Inc. in June 2008 and ran into continual delays. So far, she says, she has submitted financial information and documentation for her request at least five times.
Sometimes, Ms. Parry says, she has been told that the bank [...]

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N.J. man learns modifying mortgage to cut payments may impair credit rating

by Moe Bedard

To confuse consumers even more, not all lenders follow the guidelines.
That may change on November 1, when lenders can use a new code to report them as a “loan modification under government program.” The code will clarify which borrowers have taken modifications, but because the modification process itself is not streamlined, it won’t be the [...]

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America’s backlash against banks

by Moe Bedard

Consumers: Bailout aided lenders, not us
James Seeley and Hilary Egan live in different towns, but have lots in common: Both face financial woes, both applied for mortgage modifications and both got turned down.
And, like lots of Americans these days, both feel banks that got massive taxpayer bailouts aren’t reciprocating by helping U.S. consumers.
“I don’t know [...]

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The Mortgage Machine Backfires

by Moe Bedard

The system also led to confusion. When MERS was involved, borrowers who hoped to work out their loans couldn’t identify who they should turn to.
As cases filed by MERS grew, lawyers representing troubled borrowers began questioning how an electronic registry with no ownership claims had the right to evict people. April Charney, a consumer lawyer [...]

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Foreclosure lawyers scrutinized for ethical violations

by Moe Bedard

The state group that disciplines lawyers is debating how to deal with reports of attorneys using errors and false statements to retake property in foreclosure cases.
Some of the most egregious Florida examples come from Sarasota County, where a study this summer that looked at the civil courts system found three of four foreclosure cases that [...]

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Phone Calls Add to Din Over Loans

by Moe Bedard

Congressional Investigators Ask for More on Countrywide VIP Mortgage Program
The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted new congressional calls for more information about the program.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking [...]

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Bank Pulls Back From Acorn Work

by Moe Bedard

“Bank of America takes recent allegations made against Acorn and Acorn Housing Corporation employees very seriously,” the bank said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau dropped Acorn as a partner for the 2010 Census, and the House of Representatives voted to block the group from receiving federal funds.
“We’re not surprised that our [...]

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Scammers prey on homeowners looking for help

by Moe Bedard

Locally, a Pico Rivera business specializing in home modification loans drew the attention of sheriff’s fraud detectives when several clients showed up Sept.17 demanding answers.
The next day, deputies raided Your Dreams Come True Inc. on Slauson Avenue and later arrested Frank Candelaria, 47, for theft when he allegedly collected an advance fee in East Los [...]

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Evicted owners stripping homes of all valuables

by Moe Bedard

Sure, the plunging price reflects a weak housing market. But it also reflects another trend: the evicted former owners had stripped the home of all valuables inside — including its appliances and its plumbing — leaving only a skeleton of a structure.
“They took everything,” southwest suburban Realtor Patrick Zomparelli said.
Chicago area real estate agents say [...]

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Relatives: Bank Employees Face Flag Backlash

by Moe Bedard

Angry callers are making death threats against Bank of America employees in Gaffney, according to relatives of the workers.
Two women — who said they were the mother and sister of an employee — made the claims after a protest outside the bank on Friday.
“They’re being called daily. All day long, they are being threatened. ‘We’ll [...]

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Mortgage-modification program questioned, protested

by Moe Bedard

Protesting near the National Constitution Center, where a congressional panel yesterday tried to gauge the progress of homeowner-rescue programs, Aponte said his lender had agreed to modify his mortgage, then had withdrawn the offer.
“They said that without a job, how could I pay even that?” Aponte said. “They’re right, but it isn’t fair.”
That opinion was [...]

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Small details sometimes hinder help on mortgages

by Moe Bedard

The community groups said disparate banking practices and inefficiencies have led to delays in approvals, clogged the pipeline, curtailed the success of loan mod programs.
Eileen Fitzgerald, chief operating officer of NeighborWorks America, said it can take as long as two hours to reach a mortgage servicer. Some homeowners send in documentation, but are asked to [...]

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Why Authorities Haven’t Stopped the Foreclosure ‘Rescue’ Boom

by Moe Bedard

Four states have sued 21st Century, and at least three more have open investigations. Over 150 consumers from more than 30 states have filed complaints against 21st Century with the Better Business Bureau. No active firm has more complaints.
Yet the company forges on. Operating under a new name, Fidelity National Legal Services, it continues to [...]

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Breaking the Bank News: Millions of Fraudulent Mortgages

by Moe Bedard

Like all of us, I was sorry to learn that Lies of Our Times could not be sustained. It’s a real loss, and another signal that we have our work cut out for us in times that are in many ways ominous, but that also offer a good deal of hope. – Noam Chomsky
The headlines [...]

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Honorable Judges of Kansas: “MERS had no right to the underlying debt repayment secured by the mortgage”

by Moe Bedard

SYLLABUS BY THE KANSAS SUPREME COURT
1. A party is not contingently necessary in a mortgage-foreclosure lawsuit when that party is called the mortgagee in a mortgage but is not the lender, has no right to the repayment of the underlying debt, and has no role in handling mortgage payments.
2. In a mortgage-foreclosure lawsuit, a district [...]

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County pulls money from Bank of America over fallen soldier scandal

by Moe Bedard

Less than a week after a Bank of America employee in Gaffney removed American flags that lined a procession to honor a fallen Marine, the Cherokee County Council has decided to close their accounts with the company.
The flag flap, which happened along the funeral route for 20-year-old Lance Corporal Christopher Fowlkes and has since made [...]

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Why haven’t any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

by Moe Bedard

More than a year into the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, millions of Americans have seen their home values and retirement savings plunge and their jobs evaporate.
What they haven’t seen are any Wall Street tycoons forced to swap their multimillion-dollar jobs and custom-made suits for dishwashing and prison stripes.
There are plenty of civil [...]

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Chase and Bank of America Revise Fee Policies

by Moe Bedard

Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, two of the nation’s biggest banks, announced plans on Tuesday to drastically overhaul their debit card programs by lowering or eliminating fees, changing the way they credit transactions and allowing customers to opt out of overdraft protection.
The moves come as lawmakers and regulators in Washington push proposals to reform [...]

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Delayed Foreclosures Stalk Market

by Moe Bedard

Debra and Arthur Scriven were served notice in June 2008 that their mortgage lender, a unit of Citigroup Inc., was preparing to foreclose on their home. Fifteen months later, the Scrivens are still in their home near Columbia, S.C., and battling to stay there, even though a dispute with the lender over how much they [...]

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Hard times bring rising foreclosures to rural Ohio

by Moe Bedard

“The biggest foreclosure growth Ohio has seen in recent years has been in rural areas,” said David Rothstein, a researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. “In some ways rural areas are just beginning to catch up with the cities.”
Unlike urban areas, where numerous agencies exist to help, finding support in more sparsely populated rural spots is [...]

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Did Mortgage Collection Calls Kill This Man?

by Moe Bedard

In response, one collector allegedly mocked him, leaving a message on his answering machine, suggesting: “Why don’t you have that helicopter pick you up and bring that payment to the office.”
Months later, McLeod, 57, was dead and the mortgage servicing company, his widow alleges, is to blame.
Elizabeth Dianne McLeod, of Keystone, Fla., is suing Green [...]

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SENIOR LOAN OFFICER SENTENCED IN MORTGAGE FRAUD SCHEME

by Moe Bedard

Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Winston Thomas, age 43, of New Carrollton, Maryland today to 37 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for failure to file federal tax returns and for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a scheme in which he and his [...]

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More Loan Mod Problems Reported: Arizona AG Terry Goddard: Complaints ‘Very Troubling’

by Moe Bedard

Valley resident Miguel Lozania said he was approved for a loan modification, so he signed his paperwork and sent the bank the $900 fee.
“It sounded like it was going to work,” he said. “I even got a letter from IndyMac Bank saying they were going to do a modification.”
IndyMac foreclosed on his house anyway, selling [...]

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HUD secretary: Housing crisis improving, not over

by Moe Bedard

But Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of the watchdog group New Jersey Citizen Action, said most mortgage lenders aren’t as supportive of loan modifications.
“If the industry really believed this we wouldn’t be here,” Salowe-Kaye said.
She said some lenders appear to be padding their numbers by directing refinancing offers to homeowners with solid finances instead of those [...]

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Homeownership fell in ‘08; Asians hit worst

by Moe Bedard

 Asians, many of them living in foreclosure-ravaged California, suffered the sharpest drop in homeownership last year, eclipsing declines felt by whites, blacks and Hispanics, according to new Census data.
The decline was surprising, because Asians tend to earn more than other minority groups and have less debt. But one out of three Asian homeowners lives in [...]

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Top Obama & Clinton fund raiser stole $292 million

by Moe Bedard

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — Hassan Nemazee, a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who was arrested last month for defrauding banks, was indicted by a grand jury for stealing $292 million from Citigroup Inc.,HSBC Holdings Plc and Bank of America Corp.
Prosecutors last month claimed Nemazee stole $75 million from Citigroup. The indictment [...]

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As lenders clamp down, credit scores take a hit

by Moe Bedard

Even though some consumers have seen their credit scores improve as they trim their debt, others have seen their scores drop significantly because of late payments on bills, foreclosures and rising credit card debt.
Meanwhile, lenders’ actions during the recession are delivering another blow to borrowers — even some with pristine credit. Lenders are closing credit [...]

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Is ACORN the bank’s propaganda puppets?

by Moe Bedard

The facts are that I have studied the foreclosure crisis for over two years and have kept an watchful eye on the non-profit industry to see what they were actually doing to help struggling homeowners. Many large non-profits like NACA and Neighborhood Works have done a fairly good job at combatting foreclosures and getting the [...]

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F.D.I.C. May Borrow Funds From Banks

by Moe Bedard

WASHINGTON — Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government.
Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, [...]

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U.S. mortgage delinquencies set record

by Moe Bedard

NEW YORK (Reuters) – High U.S. unemployment keeps pushing up the rate of mortgage delinquencies, which could in turn drive personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures, monthly data from the Equifax Inc credit bureau showed on Monday.
Among U.S. homeowners with mortgages, a record 7.58 percent were at least 30 days late on payments in August, up [...]

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New trend in foreclosures as moratorium comes to an end

by Moe Bedard

VICTORVILLE • As the 90-day foreclosure moratorium comes to a close, mortgage executives began to see a new trend in foreclosures that are not just subprimes.
A survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that “prime” home loans now account for one in every three foreclosures and 58 percent of all new foreclosure starts.
Last year the [...]

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NorCal food banks besieged amid joblessness

by Moe Bedard

Larry Sly, executive director of The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, said his organization has seen a 20 to 30 percent increase in the number of people seeking food.
Food banks cite the foreclosure crisis and a spike in joblessness as causes of the surge in demand.
Read more from the SF Gate

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Super bank regulator planned

by Moe Bedard

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) will propose merging four bank agencies into one super-regulator, a more drastic step than suggested by President Barack Obama, reports the New York Times.
Dodd, who heads the Senate Banking Committee, also is at odds with Obama on the Federal Reserve; Dodd wants to diminish the role of the central bank as [...]

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